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EvEi^T Augustus Duyckinck 



^ iWemorfal ^trtcH. 



By WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER. 




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Evert Augustus Duyckinck. 



A Memorial Sketch 



READ BEFORE THE 



NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 

January 7, 1879. 



BY 



/ 



WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER. 



NEW YORK: 

TROWS PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 

205-213 East Twelfth Street. 

1879. 



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EVERT AUGUSTUS DUYCKINCK 



Born, November 23, 1816. — Died, August 13, 1878. 



In attempting a sketch of the Hfe and literary labors of our late asso- 
ciate, Evert A. Duyckinck, I dismiss, at the outset, any misgivings as to 
the degree of general interest attaching to a career whose daily course 
came so little under public observation, and whose chosen aims were so 
far removed from the ordinary pursuits of men. At first thought the life 
of a scholar and man of letters, passed chiefly among his books, and marked 
by an avoidance of society and a withdrawal from the world, presents few 
points of attraction, and may seem to furnish little material for even a brief 
biographical notice. But the friend whose memory we honor was not a 
mere recluse, living a selfish life of intellectual ease. He was a faithful 
and life-long worker. If his field of labor was retired, it was no less the 
scene of constant and patient toil ; if he preferred the quiet of his books 
and the companionship of their authors to the stir of active life and the 
social intercourse of the world, it was not to hide or bury the talents com- 
mitted to his keeping. In his self-chosen seclusion he was always con- 
tributing his measure of honest work to that true commonwealth of letters 
in which there is no conflict between the capital of intellectual gifts or ac- 
quirements and the labor of brain and hand, but where all are co-workers, 
each in his own sphere, for the advancement of the best thought and in- 
telligence of the race. 

Evert Augustus Duyckinck, the son of Evert Duyckinck and Harriet 
June, was born in the city of New York, November 23, 1816. His family 
name was conspicuous in the list of the early Dutch settlers in this part of 
the country. In Hazard's collection of State papers there is a notice of 
the depredations of the Connecticut Colonists upon the lands of the New 
Amsterdam people, under the rule of the West India Company, in which it 
is said that " they of Hartford have beaten the servants of the high and 
mighty, the honored companie from their lands, with sticks and plow staves, 
and among the rest struck Ever Duckings (Evert Duyckinck) a hole in his 
head with a stick, so that the bloode ran downe very strongly downe upon 
his body." 

Evert Duyckinck, the second of the name, who married Elsie Meyer, 



February 3, 1704, settled, during the later Colonial times, at Raritan Land- 
ing, New Jersey. Of the nine children of Evert and Elsie Duyckinck, the 
third, Christopher, who married Catharine Gautier, was actively engaged 
during the Revolutionary War in aid of the struggle for independence. 
His son, Evert, the oldest of seven children, and the father of the subject 
of the present memorial sketch, became a resident of the city of New York 
about the beginning of the present century, and engaged in the business 
of a publisher and bookseller. His house. No. 9 Old SHp, and his store 
in Water Street, adjoining it in the rear, were well known to the residents 
of old New York, by whom he was held in high esteem during his thirty or 
forty years of active business life. He gave to Messrs. J. & J. Harper the 
first order they ever received for book printing. It was for two thousand 
copies of Seneca's Morals, a large edition for the time, and, considering the 
subject, perhaps larger than could be disposed of in these degenerate days 
by any of our modern publishers with all their increased appliances of 
trade. 

A pleasant allusion to the veteran publisher was made in a letter of 
Diedrich Knickerbocker, published in the A77ierican Citizen^ New York, 
January 23, 18 10, not included in any collection of Washington Irving's 
Works, but reprinted in Mr. Stevens' Magazine of American History, for 
May, 1878. In this letter the veracious historian of New York expresses 
his regret that his work had not been published by his much esteemed 
friend, Mr. Evert Duyckinck, '•' a lineal descendant from one of the an- 
cient heroes of the Manhattoes, whose grandfather and my grandfather 
were just like brothers." At the time of his retirement from business, Mr. 
Evert Duyckinck was the oldest publisher in New York. He died in the 
year 1833. It appears from a passing allusion in a note-book of his son 
Evert, that a love of domestic retirement and quiet was characteristic of 
the family. Speaking of the luxury of a wood fire in Paris, he says : " A 
wood fire will always be associated by me with home and my best early 
days by my father's and mother's fireside. My father had a Dutch tena- 
city to domestic habits that no friction of travel will rub out from me 
either. In his store in Water Street he kept heaped 'up fires — a back log 
in the morning like a hogshead. In the ashes after dinner a few Carolina 
potatoes were commonly buried, where they lay heaped-up like the tombs 
of Ajax and Patroclus. In the evening, over the embers, my uncle Long 
always came to talk over the business of the day, while I kept close to the 
corner, rarely venturing to go among the dark shades at the further end of 
the room." 

The only children of Evert Duyckinck, the publisher, attaining majority, 
were Evert Augustus and George Long, the latter named after the uncle just 
mentioned. The two boys, between whose ages there was a difference of 
seven years, grew up in that daily contact with books and literary associa- 
tions which, to a mind naturally intelligent, is often the most potent influ- 
ence in determining the pursuits of after years. Evert was graduated from 
Columbia College in the class of 1835, at the age of nineteen, and after- 
ward spent two years in the law office of the eminent jurist and practi- 
tioner, John Anthon. He was admitted to the bar in 1837, but the pro- 
fession of the law presented no attractions to his retiring and contempla- 
tive nature. His strong bias for literary studies and pursuits, conspicuous 
during his college course, had been shown in his contributions to leading 
literary journals published in New York. For Park Benjamin's American 



5 

Monthly he wrote some papers, under the title, " Feh'x Merry's Fireside 
Essays," which one of his classmates, a competent critic, characterizes as 

a charming series of graceful, gossiping lucubrations." He soon after- 
ward became a regular contributor to the New York Review afid Quar- 
terly Church Journal, for which he wrote reviews of the Poetical Works of 
Crabbe, Mrs. Heraans, George Herbert, and Goldsmith, besides many 
other critical pieces. His love of old English literature, the department 
of study in which he always delighted, was exhibited in an article in one 
of the earlier numbers of the same review, in which his name is associ- 
ated as a contributor with those of Chancellor Kent and Bishop Mcll- 
vaine. 

A little brochure, called the " Literary," had been issued as early as 
1836, for which young Duyckinck, still in his minority, furnished an essay 
on the same favorite subject, "The Old Prose Writers," a most graceful 
paper, showing a thorough insight of the theme he treated, and marked by 
the taste and discrimination which always guided his pen, and the eleva- 
tion of thought which was his constant source of inspiration. 

In the autumn of 1838 he left home for a year of travel in Europe, which 
he made not merely an opportunity for gratifying the curiosity of an Ameri- 
can in Europe, but largely a means of verifying by his own observa- 
tion what he had learned in his studies of the life, manners, and associa- 
tions of the Old World. " I desire," he says, in the opening pages of the 
diary from which a quotation has already been given, '' to traverse Europe 
and look upon it with the eye of the Past, as Howell, or Evelyn, or Wot- 
ton travelled in the seventeenth century. I have come to see a various 
drama acted on a large scene, nor will I be disappointed for want of faith 
in the ordinary delusions of the theatre." He was most fortunate in 
forming the acquaintance, in Paris, of Mr. Harmanus Bleeker, of Albany, 
an eminent lawyer and scholar, a descendant, like himself, of a good Hol- 
land stock, who was about to visit the land of his ancestors under the most 
favorable auspices. He invited Mr. Duyckinck, and' his friend and fellow 
traveller, James W. Beekman, to accompany him, an invitation gladly ac- 
cepted. xMr. Bleeker was versed in the Dutch language and literature, 
and was well known in Holland, where soon afterward, during the Presi- 
dency of Mr. Van Buren, he represented the United States as Minister 
at the Hague. "As honest as Harmanus Bleeker," was a phrase of John 
Randolph which conveyed a sincere tribute to one of whom Duyckinck 
says, "he follows truth fearlessly in everything." He proved a most con- 
genial and instructive companion in travel, delighting his juniors with his 
good sense and the results of his long experience at the bar and in public 
life, and with his fund of anecdotes, of which Duyckinck testifies, " they 
are always good, and always new and rare, and many an hour of travel 
have they beguiled on the long, straight roads of the Low Countries." 

The tourists entered Holland at Grootzundert, a post on the frontier of 
Belgium. The appearance in their passports of such honest Dutch names 
as " Bleeker," " Duyckinck," and " Beekman," aided, no doubt, by the in- 
genuous countenances of their proprietors, eUcited a courteous waiver of 
custom-house scrutiny, and the freedom of the Netherlands seems to have 
been conferred upon them without any troublesome formalities. A private 
audience of the King, accorded to Mr. Bleeker, as the President of the 
Saint* Nicholas Society of the ancient city of Albany, and a ball at the 
palace of the Prince of Orange, were part of a round of entertainments and 



hospitalities from which Diiyckinck was disposed, under the impulse of his 
retiring and independent disposition, to draw back. *' I began," he says, 
to question my position, when I found Mr. Bleeker received by the great 
lords of the State, and myself included in the invitations. I dislike to re- 
ceive any attention to which I have not some right in myself. It sacri- 
fices independence. But I was fairly invited by Mr. Bleeker to accom- 
pany him as a fellow-traveller. He draws these attentions upon us. For 
myself, I am a looker-on in Vienna." 

Few lookers-on ever brought to the quiet task of observation more good 
sense or a keener appreciation of whatever was worthy of note. His rare 
opportunities for seeing life in Holland at its best were well improved. 
His journal, in the neat, firm handwriting, expressive of his exact method 
and nicety of taste, is a series of sketches drawn from nature and society 
with a vivid charm of expression in their descriptions of scenes and inci- 
dents of travel, which reminds one of the easy grace of Irving, and, in 
their pictures of social life and personal traits^ of the quick vivacity of 
Horace Walpole. In company with Mr. Bleeker, Duyckinck made a 
thorough exploration of all the places of interest to a literary man and a 
Hollander by descent. In a book of heraldry, at the house of Baron 
Westreenan, a noted antiquarian, they found their respective coats of arms, 
and at the hospitable tables of the burghers of Amsterdam and the Hague 
a fraternal welcome. There, as the journal attests, " eternal amity was 
sworn between Holland and America, and if," says Duyckinck, " the ocean 
that separates us were of wine (like that in the Verse Historiae of Lucian) 
these Dutchmen would drink it up for the sake of a closer union." 

It is curious and pleasant to observe from these notes of travel in Hol- 
land, more than forty years ago, the high repute in which the best people 
there held the American authors whose works were familiar to them 
through their translation into Dutch. With an ignorance as to the condi- 
tion of society and manners in America so profound, that the question was 
put to Duyckinck by an intelligent Hollander, at a diplomatic dinner, 
whether travellers in his country " subsisted by the chase," they were yet 
highly appreciative of Irving's " Columbus," Marshall's " Life of Washing- 
ton," and Cooper's novels. Perhaps these last had furnished the ground for 
the apprehensions of the worthy diner-out, that, in case he visited New Am- 
sterdam, he would have to depend for his subsistence upon the success of 
the Leather Stockings of Manhattan Island in bagging their daily game. 
However this may be, the same kindly greeting given to these well-ac- 
credited tourists was accorded to the works of their countrymen, a fact 
which loses none of its interest in the thought that this was long before 
the history and the heroes of the Netherlands had received their best com- 
memoration from the pen of an American scholar. 

But, pleasant as were these hospitalities, it is evident that the ideal life 
which our traveller had set before him was quite different from one made 
up of social gayeties. His longings for quiet study and for labor in his chosen 
field were not dissipated. A characteristic entry in his journal betrays, 
perhaps quite unconsciously to himself, his ruling hereditary passion for a 
sequestered life. Returning from a stroll in the Deer Park, a favorite 
resort for his solitary rambles while a resident at the Hague, he writes : 
" If I were a believer in the ancient transmigration, I would sigh for the 
quiet, ruminating, contented ideas of a well-antlered deer, browsing lei- 
surely along and watching the little business of his world around." 



The dream of a home of domestic happiness and of congenial studies 
and pursuits was not long in having its full realization. After leaving 
Holland, in April, 1839, he spent the summer and autumn in England and 
Scotland ; returned to New York late in the year, and renewed at once 
his cherished associations with his books and his co-workers in literary- 
labors. His first serious work, after his return home, was in the editor- 
ship, in conjunction with Mr. Cornelius Matthews, of a monthly journal, 
Arctiirus. Mr. William A. Jones was also engaged in the enterprise, and 
the three wrote almost all the articles. Some of Duyckinck's best work 
was done in this magazine, which is not inaptly described, in one of 
Edgar A. Poe's sketches of literary men, as " a little too good to enjoy ex- 
tensive popularity." It ran through three volumes, and gave Duyckinck 
the opportunity of using his critical talent on a wider and more inde- 
pendent field than had formerly been open to him, and brought him into 
closer contact with authors and publishers, with whom he was always a 
favorite and a friend. 

In April, 1840, he married Miss Margaret Wolfe Panton, and soon after- 
ward took up his permanent and lifelong residence at No. 20 Clinton 
Place, a home where the affections of wife, and children, and kindred, and 
the companionship of friends, all found their springs of happiness in his 
unvarying serenity of temper, his pure and elevated thought, and his 
devotion to duty. Here he gathered the treasures he most prized, the 
books which represented every department of general literature, but 
specially that in which he was versed. In seeking the best editions and 
in giving completeness to his collection he was aided, as also in many 
literary labors, by his brother, George L. Duyckinck, who, being much 
his junior in years, relied greatly on his counsel and was guided by his 
example. 

In the early part of 1847 Mr. Duyckinck undertook the editorship of 
the Literary Worlds a weekly journal, designed as a vehicle for the best 
criticism on books and art, and the independent and impartial treatment 
of all topics relating to the cultivation of letters. The paper was hardly 
established before he resigned the editorial control to Mr. Charles Fenno 
Hoffman ; but, about a year later, resumed it in connection with his brother 
George, then just returned from an extended tour in Europe, and by their 
united efibrts it was carried forward with a single eye to the truest interests 
of a true literature. In the opening article of October 7, 1848, the num- 
ber of the journal which marked the resumption of its control by Mr. 
Duyckinck, he concludes a striking summary of the aims of its conductors 
with these words, which well express his idea of the functions of the editor : 
"There is a class of topics to which no journalism should be insensible 
at the present day. The advancement of a sound popular education ; the 
extension of the comforts and refinements of the few to the many ; the 
amelioration of poverty and suffering embraced in those questions of social 
improvement which afford chivalric employment to the best men of the 
times — are all matters which arise naturally in connection with literature, 
science, and art. Virtue in action is the living body, of which invention 
and poetry are the eyes and heart." 

In the conduct of the Literary World an elevated and inspiring tone 
was conspicuous, and Mr. Duyckinck drew around him many able coadju- 
tors. It was at this time I saw him most frequently, always at his own 
house — for even then he mixed very little in society — where I was attracted 



8 

by the constant presence of men of mark in letters and art, and by the 
friendship subsisting between the two brothers and myself. The evenings 
in his library will long be remembered by many men whose ways in life 
have widely diverged in the years which followed the period to which 
I now advert, but who then were fond of gathering around his fireside, and 
there discussing the various topics of the day, or listening to the modest 
but always forcible expression of his critical opinions, or the quiet humor 
of his narrative of some incident or reminiscence which gave point to the 
subject of the moment. He was wholly free from the spirit of detraction, 
and, as a critic, was most discriminating, always just to authors of estab- 
lished repute, and always generous and kindly to young aspirants for liter- 
ary distinction. The office of the critic was not aUied, in his view, with 
the partisanship of special ideas or authors, nor was its chief function the 
suppression of rivals or the extinction of the weak and feeble. The sav- 
agery of the trenchant style of criticism was as alien to his idea of the true 
sphere of the literary censor as it was to the humanity of his nature, and 
he never turned his pen into a bludgeon or made it the instrument of any 
selfish or unworthy purpose. His own work, as a writer, was always con- 
scientious and complete. To extreme delicacy of taste he added a rare 
grace and nicety of expression, and a certain tact in the handling and 
exhibition of his subject which gave a peculiar charm to what he wrote. 
His standard, both as to the style and the purpose of literary composition, 
was of the highest character. The fine phrase in which Horace describes 
the accomplishments of his friend, 

" ad unguem 

Factus homo," 

he applied as the highest praise of a well-written book. It must be fin- 
ished to the finger-nail, to meet the requirements of a just criticism, and 
to this severe test he sought to subject his own work as well as that of the 
authors on whom he sat in judgm.ent. 

I have dwelt on this period of his career, because it marked the time, 
not only of my closest acquaintance with him, but also of the enforced 
cessation of our constant intercourse. To a young man, called by neces- 
sity and choice to the severer studies and active duties of the bar, 
Ambrosian nights, and the society of even the choicest spirits in literature 
and art, were temptations to be shunned, and my way of life soon ran in 
a very different path from his. But to know Duyckinck once was to be 
intimate with him always, and the infrequent meetings of later years were 
invariably on the unchanged footing of our first friendship. To turn aside 
at long intervals from the daily routine of life and its common round of 
duties to revisit him in the quiet of his studies, was as when one leaves 
the dusty and sun -struck highway to seek in some neighboring and familiar 
shade and covert the spring he knows is hidden under the thicket close at 
hand, to thrust aside the intercepting branches, and to find in the clear 
perennial waters the same refreshment and strength as when he drank 
them first. 

The Literary World y<i2js> continued to the close of 1853. The experi- 
ment of a purely literary journal, dependent on its own merits, and not on 
the patronage of a publishing house, and appealing rather to the sympa- 
thies than the needs of that very small portion of the public which took 
satisfaction in a weekly presentation of the progress of ideas, without ref- 



erence to their own party politics, their own religious denomination, their 
craving for continuous fiction, or their preference for wood cuts and cari- 
catures, had been fairly tried, and the result was not encouraging. The 
Duyckincks were men of too much sense and too much substance to pur- 
sue a literary enterprise for the mere sake of a small corps of contributors, 
however brilliant, or a select circle of readers, however appreciative. 
They wisely withdrew from the field of newspaper competition, recogniz- 
ing that inexorable law of supply and demand which less responsible pro- 
jectors of like undertakings so often ignore until the very implements and 
paraphernalia by which they sought to enlighten the world and achieve 
immortality are sold under a chattel mortgage or a sheriffs execution. 

But, although the Literary World was not a permanent success, the 
work done upon it was not lost. There is this difference between the 
failures of ventures in journalism and ordinary business reverses, that, 
while the types and presses and mechanical appliances by which they are 
carried on, may figure in a bankruptcy schedule as very unavailable assets^ 
the written words to which they have given permanent form and expres- 
sion on the printed page remain, and become a part of the great body of 
literature, to survive and to find their permanent place and value, if they 
are intrinsically worthy of preservation. Many a famous or well-deserv- 
ing poem, essay, or article, has first seen the light as a contribution to 
some short-lived magazine or journal, which may have served as a kind of 
fire-escape for the genius imperilled by its destruction. 

After the Literary World had ceased to exist, Duyckinck turned,, 
doubtless with a sense of relief, to the more congenial labors to which the 
rest of his life was devoted, and in which he found his best sphere as a 
scholar and expert in English and American literature — the editing of 
books of permanent value, and the preparation of works of history and 
biography. He had already formed relations with the publishers as a book 
editor, the Library of Choice Reading from the press of Messrs. Wiley & 
Putnam having been one of his earliest projects, and the means of intro- 
ducing some fresh books, out of the beaten track, to the reading public of 
thirty years ago. 

In 1854 he undertook, with his brother, and under arrangements with 
Mr. Charles Scribner as its publisher, the preparation of the Cyclopaedia 
of American Literature, a work of large proportions, demanding most 
extensive researches and a thorough acquaintance with the works of Ameri-^ 
can authors. The design of the Cyclopaedia was to bring together, as far 
as possible, memorials and records of the writers of the country and their 
works from the earliest period to the present day. " The voice of two 
centuries of American literature," says the preface, "'may well be worth 
listening to," In aid of the work, numerous private collections of books 
and manuscripts were freely opened, and the custodians of leading public 
libraries took pleasure in furthering it. Eminent literary men made con- 
tributions of facts and memorabilia, conspicuous among whom was 
Washington Irving, who attested his early friendship for their father in his 
kind offices for the brothers Duyckinck. Their warm and constant friend. 
Dr. John W. Francis, was also most serviceable in his judicious and valu- 
able aid. 

Two years of faithful and diligent work were expended upon the Cyclo- 
paedia, many difficulties were surmounted, and, when it was finally com- 
pleted and published, it took its place at once as the standard exposition 



10 

of the history, growth, and development of literature in America, and as 
a monument of the good taste, judgment, and discrimination of its editors. 
A supplement was added by Mr. Duyckinck in 1865, after the death of 
his brother, bringing the work down to that date. 

I can only mention briefly the leading literary labors which followed the 
completion of the Cyclopaedia. In 1856 Duyckinck edited the "Wit and 
Wisdom of Sidney Smith, with a Biographical Memoir and Notes." In 1862 
he undertook the task of preparing the letter-press for the " National Por- 
trait Gallery of Eminent Americans," published by Messrs. Johnson, Fry 
& Co., a series of biographical sketches and portraits, forming two quarto 
volumes. This work had a very extended circulation, the number of 
copies sold having long since exceeded one hundred thousand. A con- 
temporary " History of the War for the Union," in three quarto volumes, 
and another extensive work, " Biographies of Eminent Men and Women 
of Europe and America," were written by him for the same pubUshers. 
He also edited for them a History of the World in four quarto volumes, 
compiled chiefly from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and in great part the 
work of his son George. These works were all executed with the fidelity and 
care which marked the performance of every task he undertook. Less elabo- 
rate works were the editing, with a memoir and notes, of the " Poems of 
Philip Freneau," the American edition of the " Poets of the Nineteenth 
Century ;" a memorial of John Allan, the well-known New York book col- 
lector (printed by the Bradford Club), Commemorative Sketches of the 
Rev. Doctor Hawks, Henry T. Tuckerman, and James W. Beekman, read 
before the New York Historical Society, and printed by it, and similar 
memorials of John David Wolfe and Samuel G. Drake, the last named for 
the American Ethnological Sobiety. Immediately after the death of Wash- 
ington Irving, he gathered together, and published in a single volume, an 
interesting collection of anecdotes and traits of the great author, under the 
title *' Irvingiana." In a note to a friend, giving some particulars in ref- 
erence to this collection, which was made and completed in the short 
space of a month, he mentions a fact which accords with and illustrates his 
uniform delicacy of feeling and sense of propriety. "I wrote," he says, 
" a little preface in which, among other things, I stated that I had not 
entered on the work without the approval of Mr. Pierre Irving, who, as 
Mr. Irving' s literary executor, I felt should be consulted as to the prepa- 
ration of so extended a notice. For some publishers notion this preface 
was omitted." 

These various labors fully occupied all of his time aside from that 
given to his family, his church, and the institutions with whose interests he 
was identified . these were the New York Historical Society, which he 
served as a member of its executive committee, and as domestic cor- 
responding secretary, the American Ethnological Society, the American 
Geographical Society, the New York Society Library, of which he was for 
many years, and up to his death, a trustee, aiding it greatly by his full 
knowledge as to books, and Columbia College, of which he was long an 
honored trustee. He was also a corresponding member of the New 
England Historic-Genealogical Society, of the Rhode Island Historical 
Society, and of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Societ)\ 
In these alliances with institutions designed for the promotion of history 
and kindred objects he found a companionship which he preferred to 
general society, and which aided him in his own work. But his chosen 



II 

and favorite place and post was his study, over whose door he might 
have written Coleridge's invocation, 

** Tranquillity, thou better name 
Than all the family of Fame." 

Here, in absolute freedom from the distractions of the world, he pursued 
his studies and plied his pen in the scholarly tasks which engaged his 
thoughts. He was fully equipped for the best critical and biographical 
work. He knew the whole field of English literature, " as seamen know 
the sea." The authors of the Elizabethan age were as familiar to him as 
any of their successors of the Victorian era. Those "■ old fields," out of 
which comes so much of the "new corn " of modern thought and expres- 
sion, were to him like the woodland and meadow around an ancestral 
homestead. In the general range of literature and on most of its special 
subjects his knowledge was complete as to authors and the proper critical 
estimate of their works and the various editions through which they had 
passed, and thus, as scholar, critic, and bibliographer, he was a standard 
authority. I know of no one to whom any vexed questions on points of 
literary inquiry could have been as safely referred for decision without 
further appeal as in a tribunal of last resort. Nor do I know any scholar 
of our country better fitted, by natural disposition and temperament, by 
study and research, by constant practice as a writer, by experience as jour- 
nalist and editor, and by thorough magnanimity and impartiality of judg- 
ment, to discharge the duty and fulfil the trust of a literary critic. 

His collection of books and his use of them was characteristic of the 
man, and indicated at once his catholic and conservative taste, embracing 
rare and particular editions of books, of which he knew the history and 
contents ; special volumes to be prized for their peculiar place in literary 
annals ; illustrated works, selected not so much for their artistic merit as 
with reference to the aid which tlie pencil brought to the text of the 
author ; and special collections of engravings, among which he greatly 
prized his Stothards and his Cruikshanks. He was careful as to the con- 
dition and binding of his books, less as a matter of taste than with refer- 
ence to the desert of the books themselves, and nothing in his library was 
for show. In fact, only his intimate friends knew the number of his books 
or their value. They were kept in various rooms of his house, and 
many of them out of sight ; but they were always at hand when needed 
for reference, or in aid of any theme of discussion, or of the offices of 
friendship, and as occasion required he would, like the householder of the 
Scriptures, *' bring forth out of his treasures things new and old." It is 
characteristic of the modesty of the man that his library, the object of his 
constant solicitude and of his just pride, should receive special and fitting 
recognition only after his death. He knew the great importance of pre- 
serving intact a collection which had grown up as the result of the judi- 
cious and careful selection of books in this country and in Europe, by 
himself and his brother, during a period of nearly forty years, and he 
wisely determined to provide for their permanent deposit in the alcoves 
of the fine public library with which Mr. Lenox has enriched the city. 
There the spirit of the gentle and refined scholar will seem to abide 
among the books he loved, which will perpetuate his name and be the 
lasting memorial of his taste and learning. 

The home of which I have spoken, as the centre of so many domestic 



12 

affections, was visited by repeated and grievous sorrows. All the younger 
members of the household were, one by one, removed by death : the 
sisters by marriage, to whom he was as an older brother ; the brother, to 
whom he was as a second father, and whose fine reverential spirit and 
intellectual taste found expression in the memoirs of the English Church 
worthies. Ken and Latimer and Herbert ; and the three sons, whose prom- 
ise and performance were full of satisfaction. The youngest, already 
alluded to, for his share in the preparation of the History of the World, 
died in the twenty-seventh year of his age. The oldest. Evert, lived only 
sixteen years ; he had developed a fine taste and manly spirit, and was the 
constant companion of his father, to whom he was specially endeared. 
The second son, Henry, a graduate of Columbia College and a clergyman 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was cut off in his early prime at the 
post of duty, a victim to his intrepid devotion to the work of beneficence 
and Christian philanthropy to which he had consecrated himself. 

These heavy burdens of domestic grief were borne with a spirit of 
Christian fortitude. Mr. Duyckinck's religious views were simple and firm, 
resting on a thorough acquiescence in the verities of the Christian faith, as 
expressed by the church he revered, and of which he was a devout mem- 
ber. "The great background of his character," writes the Rev. Dr. Mor- 
gan, the Rector of St. Thomas's Church, in which he was many years a 
vestryman, " was his purity, or exquisite delicacy of organization ; it led 
to extreme modesty and a want of even moderate self-assertion, but for 
the most part it was his glory. His pure mind and taste marked him in 
everything. The thing which fell specially under my notice was his pains- 
taking diligence and fidelity in common, humdrum duties. He was clerk 
of the vestry of St. Thomas's, and I have still in my possession some of the 
blank-books which he filled with minutes and memoranda. It nmst have 
cost him a great deal of labor and consumed much precious time, but it 
was conscientiously done, even to the copying of long specifications. But, 
after all, the mind reverts to his quiet, studious habits and his long commu- 
nion with the best men and minds of all time." 

In a like vein the Rev. Dr. Rylance, Rector of St. Mark's Church, 
where he worshipped up to the time of his last illness, speaks of him as a 
*'rare illustration of what Wordsworth calls ' natural piety,' beautified and 
hallowed by the wisdom which is from above." "My visits to him as a 
pastor," he writes, "were always rewarded by some increase of light or 
inspiration to my own mind or heart. But only as the last mortal hour 
approached did the singular excellence of Mr. Duyckinck's Christian char- 
acter reveal itself. Through the long and painful decay of the outer man, 
the inner man was renewed day by day. No complaint or murmur did I 
ever hear from his lips, but the same chastened resignation ever showed 
itself as I approached the sufferer to minister what little comfort I could 
in his time of need. He would speak naturally, and with an earnestness 
of manner not usual with him, of the future life and of the good hope 
guaranteed by the gospel." 

As an illustration of the catholicity of his religious views, I cite a single 
paragraph from his memorial sketch of the life of his old friend and com- 
panion in travel, James W. Beekman. Speaking of the religious side of 
Mr. Beekman's character, he says, " Parallel with the worth of the Bible 
to man, he regarded, and ever in his own practice religiously maintained, the 
observance of the Christian Sabbath, not in any Puritanical exaggeration 



13 

as a day of austerity and gloom, but as a period of repose from labor and 
its severities, a time for cheerful family and friendly intercourse, of prayer 
and praise, of the opening of the mind to the higher life of the soul. 
There was no spirit of exclusiveness in this, no obtrusion of personal views 
upon others, but a generous liberality of sentiment, which respected the 
rights of those who, mindful of one great end, might differ from him 
as to the particular ecclesiastical road in reaching it." 

In the last literary work undertaken by Mr. Duyckinck, and which was 
completed only a short time before illness prevented him from further labor, 
he was associated with Mr. Bryant. The same publishers, for whom he 
had been engaged on the most important works already noticed, projected 
a popular edition of the Plays of Shakespeare, and the work of prepar- 
ing and annotating the text was undertaken, at their request, by Mr. Bry- 
ant and Mr. Duyckinck. The editions of Shakespeare are almost innu- 
merable, and so are the names of Shakesperian editors and commentators ; 
but seldom has the task of arranging and setting in order that vast array 
of dramatic scenes and persons, whose infinite variety *' age cannot wither 
nor custom stale," been confided to scholars more competent for its wor- 
thy execution. For the general supervision of the work and the special 
duty of scrutinizing the text when prepared, and of its final revision, Mr. 
Bryant was, of all American authors, best fitted, by his trained skill in the 
poetic art, his wonderful memory, embracing so much of literature and of 
literary annals, illustrative of the Shakesperian text, his severe taste, his 
long labor in the rendering of the Homeric poems into English verse, his 
large experience of life, his elevated and serene temperament, which 
made him so much a lover of nature and the human race, and so little 
dependent on companionship with individual men. These were rare quali- 
fications for the semi-judicial function of determining the best and truest 
rendering of the very many obscure and doubtful passages in Shakespeare 
over which scholars and critics have so long contended. To Duyckinck 
was confided the severer and laborious task of the first preparation of the 
text, the collation from various readings and editions of the best version, 
and the annotation and arrangement of the whole work. Although the 
duty of the editors was fully discharged some time before the death of 
either of them, the preparation of the illustrations is not yet completed, 
so that whatever credit may justly be accorded to Bryant or to Duyckinck, 
for the work which will associate their names with that of the greatest of 
their masters in English literature, will be a posthumous honor. But the 
nature and extent of their respective shares in the editorial work are 
clearly defined in the manuscript preface by Mr. Bryant, a portion of which 
has recently been made public in the columns of the Evening Post, and in 
which he says : 

" It now remains that something be said of the present edition and the 
accompanying notes. Among the variations in the text in the old copies, 
called readings, are many, the genuineness of which is matter of dispute 
among commentators. Of these, different minds will be apt to make a dif- 
ferent choice, and in consequence any edition will, in respect to some of 
these readings, differ from every other. In selecting the most authentic 
of this class, I should not have been willing to rely on my own judgment 
and opportunities, and have therefore sought the co-operation of Mr. 
Duyckinck, whose studies, habits of research, and discrimination fitted 
him in a peculiar manner for the task. With the assurance of his assist- 



14 

ance, I undertook the work, and it is due to him to say that, although 
every syllable of this edition has passed under my eye, and been consid- 
ered and approved by me, the preliminary labor in the revision and anno- 
tation has been performed by him." 

It is pleasant to think that his last labor was one so congenial to his 
tastes. Hindered by no calls to alien or disturbing duties, or rough com- 
petitions in the outer world, it was pursued in the seclusion which he loved, 
among the ample sources of aid and illustration in the books by which he 
was surrounded. From the first scene to the last, he went page by page, 
line by line, through all the dramas which the world accepts under the 
name of Shakespeare, with the patient and conscientious care imposed by 
the nature of the work and his sense of duty, and, as we may well imag- 
ine, with something of the reverent devotion to the minutest details which 
a mediaeval monk might have given to the task of illuminating the record 
of the legend of a patron saint or the text of the sacred canon. The 
labor thus delighted in was often an antidote to sorrow and pain and a 
source of strength and comfort. He showed me, on one occasion, with 
evident satisfaction, the portion of the work he had in hand ; and to an 
intimate friend, in an interview near the close of his life, when he was suf- 
fering great pain, his patient endurance found relief in words supplied by 
the great dramatist — 

" Come what come may. 
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.'* 

The review thus taken of this life of literary labor presents a succes- 
sion of unobtrusive, and yet most faithful and persevering efforts. Under 
the spur of necessity, or by the help of early association with some lead- 
ing and liberal publisher, who could have discerned the practical uses of 
his peculiar gifts, he might, perhaps, have done greater things, and made 
his name more famous. But it was better that he should have pursued his 
own chosen path, and left us this rare instance of an unspoiled scholarly 
life, passed in the midst of a great commercial metropolis, which, with all 
its varied attractions and temptations, could not divert him from the pur- 
suits to which he was devoted as by an irrevocable vow. We are under a 
great obligation to the scholar who thus attests his fealty to the cause of 
letters. In a great city, with its countless and ceaseless activities, where 
the participants in the daily round of duties, from the drudgery of the most 
menial service to the high-wrought schemes by which the highest material 
interests are served, are under the whip and spur of a necessity or a com- 
petition which suffers no choice and no cessation, the scholar and the 
student are indispensable. The preservation of a literature is no less 
needful than its growth, and while the great mass of educated men must 
follow special callings and professions, which debar them from the general 
studies and researches to which their tastes invite, it is a satisfaction to 
know that there are men qualified for the task, who keep watch over the 
sources and springs of literature, who defend it from what is unworthy, 
who are the custodians of its treasures and the guardians of its pern»anent 
interests. Their service is not conspicuous, and may be lightly esteemed, 
for it is not performed on a wide stage, nor in the glare of competition. 
They stay by the supplies, and it should be ours to see to it that, in the 
distribution of rewards, " as his part that goeth down to the battle, so 
shall his part be that remaineth by the stuff." 



IS 

It may seem, in the retrospect of the life I have sketched, that it presents a 
character without a fault. If so, I might plead the grateful prerogative 
and privilege of the delineator of a purely private life, with no relation to 
public events imposing upon the biographer the duties and restraints which 
attach to the historian. In the portrait of the friend we love, we want to 
see him at his best ; and if it is painted by the hand of affection, it may 
well present, in a single aspect, the idea of all that was most admirable in 
the original. The famous speech of Cromwell to Sir Peter Lely, " Paint 
me as I am," may have been only the shrewd self-assertion of a nature 
which imposed its rude restraint upon whatever was adventitious and not 
within the compass of its own control. And yet, if I were charged, as on 
the oath of a witness, to testify as to the failings of the subject of my 
sketch, I should have to seek for them outside of any knowledge or infor- 
mation of my own. ^ 

His was a life singularly free from blemish or blame, and equally exempt 
from enmity or detraction. It may be said that he was less exposed to 
temptation by reason of his seclusion from the world, but while the 
praises of the solitary life have often been set forth, it cannot be claimed 
in its behalf that the infirmities of the individual man part company with 
him when he quits the society of his fellows. He who mixes least with 
the world is apt to have the worst opinion of his kind, and to become 
querulous, if not cynical, just as the citizen who is earliest and most fre- 
quent in his despair of the Republic is usually the last and least service- 
able in any effort for its rescue. The votaries of a pure literature are no 
exception to the rule. If Cowper fled from the world as the scene " where 
Satan wages still his most successful war,' ' it was only to find in his seclu- 
sion new inward sources of conflict and distress, from which a closer con- 
tact with the world would perhaps have been the best safeguard. But our 
friend, in his self-chosen home life, was always in sympathy with the world 
without, thoroughly patriotic and loyal as a citizen, and most genial and 
hearty in his appreciation of whatever was deserving of general regard 
and esteem. 

Although a recluse, he loved the city, its nearness to his quiet nook of 
study, the concourse of its streets, its public libraries and exhibitions of 
art, its repositories of books and engravings, its strong and busy life. He 
was never willingly away from it. A day's ramble in the country now and 
then sufficed for out-of-town enjoyments. I could never persuade him to 
pass a night under my suburban roof Like Madame De Stael, who pre- 
ferred a fourth story in the Rue de Bac to all the glories of Switzerland, 
he kept to the city, and shunned a change even in mid-summer heats. 
But, unlike her, his choice was for its solitude and not for its society, and 
such was the purity of his character that it did not corrode or become 
debased by being hidden from the light. 

He is buried in the graveyard at Tarrytown, beside the old church of 
Sleepy Hollow. The spot was selected by himself and his brother long 
ago, as a place of family burial, on account of its loveliness of situation, 
its quaint surroundings, and the associations which have been woven about 
it by the master hand of Irving, whose grave is near his own. Hard by 
this rural solitude, along the iron pathway which skirts it, the heavily 
freighted trains move day and night, and eager crowds hurry to and fro on 
their ceaseless errands, while beyond, on the broad river, the gathered 



i6 

fruits of the cornfields and prairies of the West go to seek a market in the 
great Metropolis, or beyond the sea. In this contrast of the grave, with 
its unchanging repose, beside the restless, rapid movements of the living, 
we may find an image, not inapt, of the life we have surveyed, so near 
the stir and rush of the outward world, and yet, in its calmness and seren- 
ity, so far removed, and, as we turn from the peaceful life, and the quiet 
grave, both alike are bright with the best memories of earth and the smile 
of heaven. 





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